14 DAY TRIAL // Many tutorial sites have been launched and gained notoriety on the web in recent years, but none of them have delivered in terms of quality and quantity as the Envato-owned Tuts+ Network. Heading operations for the Australian-based startup is Skellie, founder of Skelliewag.org, a place to find insightful blog posts on new media topics. Tuts+ is formed of these successful websites: Psdtuts+ (Articles about graphic illustration using image processing software, aka Photoshop science)
Nettuts+ (Educational posts about the world of programming)
Activetuts+ (formerly known as FlashTuts, the place to learn cool Adobe Flash techniques)
Vectortuts+ (Vector-based art and tutorials on how to create them)
Phototuts+ (A place to learn how to manipulate photography)
Cgtuts+ (CGI graphics and animations explained for everyone)
Aetuts+ (A database of tutorials and educational posts on how to create, edit and finalize movies in AfterEffects)
Audiotuts+ (Articles about music composing and editing). In the big picture, Envato has recently added new services to their products. After launching a fresh product category (Magento themes) for their website templates marketplace ThemeForest, the Tuts+ team released their own new line of tutorials called “Creative Sessions.”
To shed some light on this matter, Skellie was kind enough to talk with us about their new project, an interesting venture, if I may say so. Softpedia: Hello Skellie, it is so nice of you to make some time for our readers. Tell us about how you got to work with Tuts+ and what drove you to do so.
Skellie: Thanks for having me! At Envato we help creatives both learn and earn with our different services. My focus is on the ‘learning’ side of things, helping out with Tuts+, our business blogs, Rockable Press and now Creative Sessions.
I started out as a weekly writer for FreelanceSwitch, then became editor of that site when Collis and Cyan (Envato’s founders) moved on to other things. I set up and edited Audiotuts+, then moved on from both those sites to become the Tuts+ Manager. Now I’m moving into a broader role across a few different aspects of the business. Things change quickly at Envato because we’re growing fast. That’s one of the reasons why it’s fun to go into work every day.
I’m really passionate about the internet’s capacity to drastically lower the barriers to learning and expertise. You meet so many self-taught people doing amazing things these days, and I think it’s mostly thanks to the internet. It’s something I love being a part of.
Softpedia: Amongst the numerous tutorial sites, why do you think Tuts+ is better than any other out there? Skellie: Most tutorial sites are labors of love run by one or two people. There’s a limit to how much output those sites can have. Tuts+ is different – it’s a freemium service where 80% of the content is free and 20% is paid. It’s profitable, but we reinvest everything back into the business. We have a network of staff, an accounts department, and treat it like a business. This allows us to pay authors better than anyone else, to publish a huge volume of content, and to stay alive and healthy because we have a sound business model to support us. Advertising income helps, but it’s our Premium members who enable us to provide all the great free content, as well as the Premium stuff.
Softpedia: Was allowing readers the possibility to publish content and get paid for it the main reason that shot Tuts+ to the heights of success or did some other factors also contribute? Skellie: That’s a big part of it. Our authors actually read the sites they write for, so they understand the audience. By hiring from within our readership, we support our own community. Some of our most senior staff members started out as tutorial authors drawn from our own community. It’s a great way to find talented people who’re really passionate about Tuts+.
Softpedia: The site's recent project, “Creative Sessions,” will be focused more on “Why?” instead of “How?” What does that mean? Will the tutorials be different in any form?
Skellie: Tutorials tend to micromanage you through creating a very specific outcome. One of the reasons they’re so well-loved is because they don’t discriminate based on skill level – if a beginner follows the steps closely enough, they can create something that looks really good. But we all know that, particularly in creative fields, the quality of work is determined by the decisions that went into it. A beginner can copy someone else, but they can’t create an original masterwork on their own. Sessions focuses on the creative decision making process – instead of copying someone else’s work, it teaches you how to make good creative decisions that will help you make wonderful, original works of your own.
We think tutorials are extremely important for learning, but the theory behind the tutorials has always been missing. Guitarists learn guitar by playing other people’s songs. Artists learn to paint by copying what they see. But being able to play ‘Purple Haze’ by Jimi Hendrix doesn’t guarantee that you can write a song of your own, let alone something just as good.
Creative Sessions will fill that gap and hopefully provide people with a complete creative education.
Softpedia: The quality of the first posts in “Creative Sessions” has been more than we ever thought. The eternal search for “Why?” in an artist's life seems a good fit for an environment where software products and online services are dumbing down everything for users. Do you think this will be the best initiative from Tuts+ in this regard?
Skellie: There’s never been a better time to launch a site like Sessions because the design community is doing a lot of soul searching and asking questions about the quality of the content it has been providing. There’s been a lot of criticism directed at sites like Smashing Magazine for publishing articles that don’t really teach anything. People criticize tutorials for focusing on the tools (for example, Photoshop) too much. It’s a fair point – just because you know how to use every function in Photoshop doesn’t mean you can create good graphic design. Sessions goes deeper and focuses on what goes into good design. When people are criticizing the design community for being shallow and full of fluff, Sessions is a move in the opposite direction.
Softpedia: In “Creative Sessions” will the community be able to submit content as before, or will this section be limited to established professionals only? Skellie: The community can always submit, but the barrier for entry is a bit higher on Sessions than on Tuts+ because of the depth of the content. Most of the authors are people we respect in the design community who have been invited to take part. But we will always accept someone with useful lessons to teach and a great idea!
Softpedia: Talking about community-submitted content, is Tuts+ building its own base of in-house authors, or will it rely solely on the community? Aren't you scared of a bidding war between other sites publishing the same material? Like Smashing Magazine, which pays up to 450$ per article?
Skellie: Each site has a core group of ‘regular writers’ who contribute a few times a month. Then we have one-off contributors, usually drawn from the community. Our author base is probably half invited to write for us, and half drawn from the community. We’ve never found there’s much competition for authors between us and other sites. Most of the people who write for sites like Smashing Magazine are freelance writers at heart, who are really good at researching. You’ll always notice the same people writing about 10 vastly different topics. Often the authors who contribute to Tuts+ are inexperienced writers but have expert knowledge about what they’re teaching. They’re usually not freelance writers primarily, but usually work in the industry they write about. Because the types of authors we get are different, we don’t have too many problems with competition.
Softpedia: Every Tuts+ site is linked to an Envato Marketplace, all except for PhotoTuts. Is this a lonely child, or future plans will include an Envato photography marketplace? Skellie: The marketplaces are a separate business, so they have their own managers, staff and decision makers. Only they know their future plans for new marketplaces, but I do know that we sell some stock image files on GraphicRiver – so in a way Phototuts+ does support that marketplace.
Softpedia: Adobe CS5 has been recently launched to ecstatic reviews. Does the progress in content processing (image, sound, video) present any kind of danger of rendering some of the techniques described in many tutorials obsolete?
Skellie: The techniques in all our tutorials will probably still work going into the future, but new versions of the creative suite will lead to more efficient ways of doing things. In future we have plans to create a wiki-like system for our tutorials so the community can update them when aspects of some tutorials become obsolete, or are replaced by more efficient methods. It should help guarantee that all our tutorials are timeless, because we believe that learning materials should be used and re-used indefinitely.
Softpedia: Softpedia is a software download index, so we are curious to know what the software products you absolutely love are, and if you have ever used our index to find programs to make your life easier.
Skellie: Once a big Firefox fan, I felt the browser was getting too bloated and switched to Chrome for Mac. I love it! Other products I like are TextMate (for coding and notes), Tweetie (for Twitter), Skitch (for screenshots), Lastpass (for passwords), Evernote (for information management) and TuneUp to keep my iTunes in order. I hadn’t visited Softpedia before but considering how much I love apps, I think I’m going to grow to love it!
Softpedia: We kindly thank you for your time!
We also want to thank Fuad Ta'eed for setting up this interview and Constantin Potorac.